Books, Books, Books and some recommendations! Ch 13

At least if I update this occassionally, I'll be able to provide a good list of books that I've read - and ones that you might be interested in reading too. I truly HIGHLY recommend them all. Click on the link to the books if you want to buy them. If you click on the link and purchase something a lovely charity called the Living by Giving Trust (see here) will earn some money to support its causes. :)

As well as Doctor Who books (see my last blog update), I also read lots of other fascinating books too. Here is one of the classic Science Fiction books by JG Ballard: High-Rise. This is a very scary, gripping and tense book about a tower block that becomes very insular and a tribal mentality begins. It's a book about how easy it is possible for society to collapse when there are no outside influences - neighbours with sizzling jealousy and eventual hatred. It's a fascinating view on what could happen if the "Survival of the Fittest" mentality becomes the first thought of a group of people.

Another book themed on how society can go wrong is Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (Penguin Modern Classics). It's a slightly different take on High-Rise. This time the animals overthrow the evil human farmer, and begin to live in an equal society. However, very quickly the pigs take on the leadership, and they revert back to human ways of thinking. The other animals become second-class citizens. Well worth the read and Orwell will keep you hooked throughout.

A final book for now and another science fiction book was The Reviver written by a new author called Seth Patrick. I don't want to say much about it, because I think people should read it first. It belongs at the top of the sci fi genre, as it was so so good. Buy it today. Please. You'll not regret it. Here are some more notes on it from the author themselves.

Books - Chapter 12

I am afraid that I have been very busy and been away from home too much. I ended up having to rehouse my cat because I was in LA so much. However, it has enabled me to read more and thus I'll start listing books here again. I love my blog and I would not want to see it wasted. I must have some fans as there are hits and visits on this blog.

Here are some more books that I have recently read and HIGHLY recommend. Click on the links if you want to buy them. If you click on the link and purchase something a lovely charity called the Living by Giving Trust (see here) will earn some money to support its causes. :) I supported them recently, and though I've not been to any of their events, I have supported them as much as possible. This is one way I can do that.

In my last blog (a year or so ago!), I talked about some of the Doctor Who books I was reading, especially as it was the 50th Anniversary. Here are some more books and Target books that I've read since. But first, what are Target books? Target are the people that published loads of novelisations for the stories on TV...and many are pretty good. :)

First up, I read Doctor Who and the Web of Fear, which is a really excellent tale. I read this before they had rediscovered most of the television episodes, and I am quite pleased I read it first. Normally you can read these books, and suspect that your mind is picturing the sets far better than they were on screen. However, this time, I rather think they were a lot better than even my imagination. It's all very eerie as a book and I highly recommend it. I am not sure why they have not reprinted this like so many others. If you click on above, you'll see a link to purchase it.

Second, I read Doctor Who-The Macra Terror, which is another interesting story, because we will never see it on DVD again (so far!). Unfortunately this time, I suspect the Macra were really terrible, but the book means you don't have any special effects worries - which is a good thing. It's quite a creepy little story and one that had me hooked for most of the time. Weird and wonderful.

Now, I moved on to Doctor Who: The Wheel of Ice which is a completely new adventure for the Second Doctor. It feels like the black and white era (that I remember watching as a kid) and feels like one of Pat Troughton's stories. Wonderful. I got a bit lost sometimes, but all in all worth the paper it was typed on. Highly recommended.

And, then I moved back to Target, and read Doctor Who: Dragonfire by Ian Briggs. I quite liked this, though again the book makes the snow and cliff tops sound real (watch the episode, the fake snow is embarrassing). It's a much more interesting novelisation than the book below, and there were lots of extra bits not in the TV episodes that helped the plot make much more sense. This was a McCoy era story.

My final book for now (I promise to write this more regularly!), was Doctor Who-The Mysterious Planet. This is a Terrance Dicks novelisation of a Colin Baker story. I quite liked this story on TV, though many did not, and Dicks simply writes a novelisation of the scripts. It was OK, but I think he could have tried to provide a bit more detail to the whole thing. I must dig out the other books of this season, and see if they were better (or worse!!). The problem was the premise is a bit boring (Doctor on trial), and Dicks doesn't try to make it more interesting. Perhaps he wasn't allowed to, especially as he later wrote a novel (The Eight Doctors (Dr. Who Series)) that tried to sort out some of the issues with the 14 part series. All in all I gave it 6/10.